The Newcomer
by MLA Standard
Summary: A newcomer has entered the life of House. One that shares a mysterious past with Wilson.
1. What A Start!

1Damn it! My best you'd-be-a-fool-not-to-hire-me blouse is now soaked with some idiot's french vanilla. This is what happens when you don't move into town long enough to unpack before your major interview. This is what happens when you stop at the corner Starbucks twenty minutes before said major interview. The only other shirt I can find in the stacks of unopened, moving boxes is a bright, tangerine nightmare given to me from an aunt three Christmases ago. A little, low cut number that looks like a reject from Michael Flatley's closet. I don't know why I still have it. It should have been tossed somewhere along the many, many highways between my hometown and Jersey. I can't go topless! This will have to do. I wouldn't have gotten this 2,000 miles away job offer if they were going to hire me for my sense of fashion.

I marched into the lobby five minutes before I needed to be in Dr. Lisa Cuddy's office. A sense of impending doom fell upon me, and I'm certain that the failing alarm clock, and the coffee incidents this morning weren't flukes, but in fact elements of a spectacularly horrible theme that will be this day. No, no I can't think like this. I have a second chance, out of Iowa, and away from the past. This will be different. I'm siking myself up for it and can't believe myself when I smile at the receptionist as she points me to the elevators.

"You're way off!" I hear someone practically scoff in my direction, as I'm marching towards the elevators. I turn around to see a man with a cane, indeed, talking to me. He's above six feet tall, has dark hair that's beginning to lighten up in spots, and penetrating blue eyes. I realize that for the first time, in an incredibly long time...forever...I'm attracted to a man before I catch myself. I'm ashamed. "Pardon?"

"You're extremely off." He repeats his assertion, this time using "extremely" as if the situation was somehow bleaker. "Don't let the flashing red lights outside fool you. Unless you have a ping pong ball that you can't dislodge yourself, you're in the wrong district." He rubs the t-shirt beneath his jacket between his middle and forefingers to insinuate my own shirt. Then pops two tell-tale white pills into his mouth straight from the bottle. I notice the almost laughing, jeering shine in his ocean, blue eyes now, but can't tell if he is joking or high. 

If it weren't for the last half hour I've had, or the morning I've had, or the moving here, or the last three miserable, desolate years I'd had, I might have pitied him and walked away. But I can't, this was the last emotionally emetic experience on the camel's back, and I was glad to unleash my burden upon this jerk. "Perhaps then, you could point me in the right direction! For in your drug induced state it seems that you think I resemble a prostitute that has turned you down! Thank-you but unnecessary! If I ever require your solicitude I'll send up the gimp signal!" Every couple  
of words my voice becomes louder until I found that I'm yelling. I blush slightly and turn on my heel to the elevator doors.

I couldn't feel him move behind me immediately, and assumed that I had stunned him immobile. He never attempted to respond as I waited for the door to open. It seem like forever, until they whooshed apart and I could step in, when I turned around to press the button, I saw him staring hard at me but with a slight smile at his lips. He moved to join me inside. As if predicting his movement I held my palm up to hinder him. "Don't even think about getting on with me." Me eyes telling him of all the unholy hell I would unleash on him if he tried.

I was so relieved to be alone on the ride up. I was about to have the interview of a lifetime, and all of a sudden I felt like I could cry. It wasn't the weird argument with the crazy man down stairs, as much as the upheaval of so many feelings all coming at me at once. Even though the awful words I'd just spoken were beneath me and I regretted them the moment they left my mouth. I didn't have time to analyze what had just happen or to beat myself up about it for the next three days starting this second. I needed to focus on the task at hand...focus on the good. I made it. I'm here. I'm moving on.


	2. Will She Be Staying?

1"You should have seen what I did to that Berman chick this morning." House was leaning against the door fame of a examining room talking to Wilson. "With that shirt she was asking for it. She might as well have been wearing a sandwich board. 'Look at my breasts!" He punctuated the last phrases with movements from his free hand.

"I heard her reply was quite splendid to behold" Wilson laughed.

House rolled his eyes. "I didn't realize it was trendy to verbally affront cripples all of a sudden."

"Michelle Berman,...Michelle Berman. Why does that name sound so familiar?" Wilson's brow furrowed and he crossed his arms to think.

"Volger's new kick's been this Berman. He's been mentioning her for weeks. At first it was crucial for me to fire one of my staff sans Chase. Now he's bringing in his staffer minions for God knows what."

"The one from Iowa? The intern, House?" He shook his head in disapproval.

"Well, now the country bumpkin's been put in her place. It's better that she realize she doesn't belong here now, before she get's somebody killed." House said as they began to walk towards the cafeteria.

"And on what evidence do you base this ideology?"

"She shouldn't have lives in her hands. When you see the tacky outfit and her naive, optimistic, void of thought expressions you'll understand. Besides, insulting the handicap isn't exactly superb beside manner."

"And I'm certain, you, House, above all other doctors here, are concerned about this hospital's reputation on bedside manner."

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The creep from downstairs practically ran me down as I was stepping out of Lisa Cuddy's office. I had been laughing at a joke she'd told. I had heard it but didn't truly comprehend it. I was too ecstatic about obtaining the position as assistant director to grasp most of my periphery.

I had carefully explained that my being here was not to replace her but instead a payback for a favor my father had done for Volger. I was here to learn, nothing more. I think she saw the sincerity in my eyes. Perhaps she had even heard the wavy desperation in my voice, to find a person with common ground here, and to be allowed to find a niche and be left alone. I didn't decide to divulge the reasons for the unorthodox move from Iowa in the middle of my internship to an appointment I hadn't inclination, neither right to. Yet, I think we had reached an understanding somehow. I knew I would like her right off the bat.

It took me a moment to compose myself from the unpleasant surprise of running into this man again. He couldn't possibly be a doctor could he? The idea made my blood run cold. It took me another moment to recognize Dr. James Wilson standing beside him.

"James." I heard myself say. He appeared to be as shell shocked as I was.

"Michelle."

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The tension was palpable in the air. The four just stood there, seemingly suspended in a gap of time lapsing eternal. Michelle and Wilson's sad eyes couldn't rip apart from each other. Wilson almost started, as if he were going to touch her. She turned her gaze away from him with eyes the barely showed the hint of faintest tears.

House watched them back and forth like a tennis spectator, almost afraid that if he spoke or even moved too quickly some sort of spell would be broken and he would never learn it's secret. One eyebrow rose in observation. He seemed to be enjoying this.

Cuddy was sensitive enough to understand that there were two too many people in this corner of the hallway at this moment. "Dr. House, I need to speak with you for a moment."

"If it's about clinic hours, can't it wait?" He asked, his eyes never leaving the display before him.

"It's a matter that I think should be discussed immediately." She began to make angry hand motions for him to move.

Reluctantly, House followed her down the hall. As she began to take a corner, her grabbed her arm and pulled her into the nearest empty room. "What are you doing?"

He pulled back the wall curtain and watched Wilson and Michelle from around the door. "I'm not missing this." He said quite simply. "And you don't want to either."

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"If I had been aware that you worked hear, I would have never..." Michelle began. She tired to breathe evenly to stay within control.

"No. It's fine. It's..." Wilson seemed to be at a loss for words.

"Well at least tell me what they're saying." Cuddy unbuttoned her jacket and flopped on the patient bed.

"Shhh! I can't barely make out what they're saying as it is," House leaned a little closer out of the door.

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"I can go talk to Cuddy right now and..."

"No! There's no need for... Will you be alright with...this?" Wilson appeared genuinely concerned. Michelle was groping for an honest answer to that question when Volger came up behind her and put his arms around her shoulders.

"Mikey! You're here! How's your father?"

"Hello Edward." Michelle tried hard to not grimace on the outside, but House noticed it, despite the distance. Her hating Volger, brought her a notch up in his opinion of her. He noticed the strained way she held herself. Straight and taunt like a bow: ready to defend herself at any instance against various foes. And how the hospital's fluorescent lights touched her hair and uniquely played against the chestnut color. Not exactly attractive, but not completely without charm. He admired her. Yet taking at job from a guy you hated took her a notch down again. Yes. In one way or another everybody lies.

"I trust the meeting went well."

"Yes, it did. Dr. Cuddy will prove a considerable resource for you I think."

"Then you're staying?"

Michelle chanced a quick look at Wilson. "I'm not sure you can afford me." Volger gave a loud and deep laugh to this.

"Let me take you to lunch."

"Oh...That's not necessary." She loathed the idea of eating lunch with this man.

"I insist!"

"Well, at least let me stop home and get a different shirt."

Volger provocatively touched her shirt. She grimaced again, worse this time. "I was going to ask..."

"I spilled coffee on the one I was going to wear this morning." She finished this sentence by looking straight into House's eye a full ten yards down the hall. It accomplished the task. He felt like a jerk, but only a little bit.

Volger placed his arm possessively around Michelle again. "Shall we?" Michelle looked at Wilson longingly for a few moments. "Goodbye, Dr. Wilson."

"Goodbye." And with that, Volger escorted her away from him.

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When House's curiosity is finally peeked, he never plays coy about finding the answers. After about three minutes of sitting in the cafeteria and acting indifferent to the second incident of the morning, the one involving his friend, he got down to it. "What was with the Twilight Zone moment this morning? Did you bang a handful of pre meds during college lectures through mid west? Some of us collect shot glasses, or those little spoons..."

Wilson hadn't touched his plate once. "She not a doctor." Wilson stated quietly.

House realized the Wilson hadn't answered his implied question, but wasn't sure if it was intentional. He did recognize his friends mood. Their friendship had lasted longer then most of the other relationships they had in their lives. He wouldn't be obtaining anymore information then that, at least not right now.


End file.
